That word. “Anxiety.” It used to drive me nuts when Suzanne, or my daughters, would mention they had it. The reason was: I didn’t get it—literally and figuratively. Anxiety always seemed to provide a convenient excuse to not get involved or do something. It was never a problem when we had fun things to do… But something serious? That was another story. One or all of them was always getting anxious when something serious was taking place… In all my life (I’m inching closer to 52 years old now), I had never experienced anxiety. In fact, I never really felt...
This week has become another one of those, “I was going to write something else.” weeks. The rapidly changing global situation has compelled me to write these thoughts instead of what I had planned… On July 4, 2007, I silently slipped away and played golf at around 7:00 AM. I wanted to hit something. At the time, I thought it was best to hit a ball… not anything or anyone else. That day, I was staying at my parents house in California while Suzanne and our girls were back home in England (and no, they weren’t celebrating Independence Day, my...
When I became a widower, I was hopelessly lost. My senses went into overdrive and my feelings were so intense and alien to me, I was in a complete state pf panic and a total fog. It felt like I was in a freefall. It was as if the rug that I had been walking on all of my life had suddenly and dramatically been pulled out from beneath my feet and there was no floor underneath me. The sensation of falling into an abyss had never been more acute. The saving grace were the friends and family that showed...
What is an unalome? It’s a symbol. There are many styles of unalome, but this is a post about the meaning. But one particular unalome has an even more profound meaning for me than the “definition” of the unalome. The unalome symbol represents the path to enlightenment in the Buddhist culture. The dots at the start of the symbol represent when we are conceived and then born. Essentially, this is the moment we become something from nothing. The spirals are meant to symbolize the twists and turns in life, and the straight line the moment one reaches enlightenment, or “peace and...
I had prepared a different post to publish today (not this one), but I changed my mind. Instead, I felt compelled to write about how it feels to arrive at the 18-month mark since Suzanne died. On my personal Facebook page, the memory of what I wrote 1-year ago came up and I posted it—it was from when I was “6-months out.” In that post at 6-months, I said this: Six months. Six months since I last kissed you and you knew I was there. Six months since I had my hand on your heart as it beat for the...
Among the many things I have been told since Suzanne died was that I should not try to distract myself from the grief. No matter what the form, a distraction (from what I can gather) is anything I do that stops me from thinking about Suzanne’s death and my love for her while I am in the process of thinking about it (and feeling sad, upset, angry, etc.). What I find is that it’s nearly impossible not to get distracted by something. Children, work, TV, walking, doing anything… Pretty much whatever one may do after our person dies will be...
In most other languages, the onomatopoeia that we use to describe these birds does not exist. We call them hummingbirds because, like flip flops and ping pong, it describes the noise made rather than the name of the thing itself. The word most other languages use instead is “Colibri”. This is significant for two reasons. One, I find the word more elegant than hummingbird. And two, I have used this word as the name of my own business (spelled Kohlibri Coaching). Why? When Suzanne died, we sat as a family in mourning. We talked about her spirit. Her resilience. Her...
That’s me. It’s a label. Anyone who truly knows me, knows I don’t like labels. But this is probably the only one I proudly wear these days. I used to wear the label husband, too. But because my wife died, I am reticent to use the label “widower”, even if that’s what I am to many. I am still a husband. Always will be. I was Suzanne’s husband and she died my wife, so I will always and forever be her husband. But dad. That’s a label I am still wearing. Proudly. This post isn’t about the label, though. It’s...
As our grief and the way we live our lives change over time after the death of a spouse, it’s hard to grasp the fact that we, too, are changing. Sometimes dramatically. Trauma, PTSD, fear, anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, remorse, survivor’s syndrome, all are common side effects of loving and losing someone who was meant to be your partner for life. When Suzanne died, I think I experienced them all. In all honesty, I’m not entirely sure what I went through in the days, weeks, months and year after she died. It was pretty foggy and widow brain (it’s a...
You probably know a widow or maybe even a widower (we are about 10% of the widowed population, so a little rarer to know one of us). You probably know me if you’re reading this. You probably read a few things on the internet about what it’s like to be widowed. You probably have even seen some terms that you think might be appropriate to use when asking about our lives since losing our spouses. You might even sometimes ask me how I am doing. My “normal” reply will invariably be, “I’m doing Okay.” The reason this is my “normal”...
